Getting Started

If you are a member of the Class of 1969 …

And if you know your username (or email) and password, please login now!

If you don’t have that information, use the “lost your password?” link on the login page. Your username is your name in this format:

lastname.firstname

If you can’t login (or you don’t have an account yet), please use the Contact Us form, and we’ll get you set up!

Not a member of the Class? Unsure?

Perhaps you aren’t a member of our Class, but you want to be — perhaps you are a spouse, a widow or a child of a member of the Class; or you dropped out; or you finished later or somewhere else. Whatever! We are happy to have you join us! Just use the Contact Us form and let us know your relationship to the Class … and we’ll take care of you.

Now, check your profile! And update it!

We’ve tried to pre-populate your information, but there may be errors or oversights. Click on Edit Profile and make any changes you want.

Double check or update your email address. This is how your friends can reach out to you.

The existing email address is either what the AYA has for you or a “placeholder” email address on the Yale1969.org server. The placeholder email address won’t actually work, but having an email address was “required” in order to create an account/profile for you. Replace any “placeholder” email address with one that will work for you.

Check the extracurricular activities like sports, arts, music, leadership, civic or other activities you participated in. When you do, they will show up on your profile. More importantly, when you click on them in your profile, you’ll see classmates who shared those activities with you! So, please take the time to list any activities or organizations you were part of!

Add a recent picture, preferably one that is big enough and which shows mainly your face.

Add the two “blurbs” that summarize your career and your personal journey so far. Your classmates will be VERY interested in hearing about your career or your personal situation(s). Also, don’t be afraid to add pictures or to link to any online pages that might be relevant.

If you are technically challenged … (Luddites and Ludd-lights welcome!)

Not everyone is going to be comfortable dealing with this technology. We really want your participation, and we want to have your profile present you off in the best possible light. So, the webmasters have offered to help. Just email support@Yale1969.org or use the Contact Us link to get help.

Now, contact your friends!

The site is designed to help you find your friends and to reconnect with them:

Go to someone’s profile page. Hopefully, they have added a picture and updated their “Family” and “Career” sections.

If you want to email them, click on the “Email This Classmate” button on their profile. Compose your message and the website will send it to the Classmate; if they reply, you two will be in direct email touch, without the site in the middle.

How About Privacy?

First, please realize that most people shouldn’t ever find this site! We’ve requested that it not be indexed on Google or other search engines. (To be precise, we have followed the requirements to request that search engines NOT index the site; we can’t guarantee they will, but we expect they won’t index our site.) So, people “googling” shouldn’t find this site, in all likelihood.

With the exception of a few public lists of Classmates, and most of the “Resources” pages, everything on the site is not visible until you login. And the only people with accounts on the site are members of the Class of 1969.Specifically, none of the content of any profile, any ClassBook (Old Campus, Banner, 25th Reunion Essays), any post, any comment or any picture is visible to any person other than a logged-in user — a member of the Class.

Class dues are designated funds for our class treasury, used by class leaders to keep classmates connected with one another and the university. Dues are used to support class programs, fund financial aid for five-year reunions, and cover the costs of class mailings and other communications. Class dues are not considered contributions to Yale.

What's The Listserv?

The “Listserv” is/was a tool promoted by AYA back in the late 90’s. You could add your name and email to a “list” for our class. Then any email sent to “Y1969-l@ayalists.yale.edu” by someone on the list would be forwarded to everyone on the list. It was meant to be a sort of discussion forum.

Because 1) it was an “opt-in” list, 2) AYA did a poor job promoting it, 3) it had a poor user interface, 4) it took some technical skill to sign up, and 5) it was a fairly clunky tool … because of all that, only about 120 people out of our 1,056 Classmates signed up for it.

AYA has now discontinued it — no further signups are allowed. See http://aya.yale.edu/content/class-lists-0. The promised replacement is over 12 months overdue. But the original Listserv still works. Sort of.

In the aughts, the “early adopters” in our Class tried to use the tool to share information re: jobs, apartments, vacation destinations, announcements, recommendations and so on — groping for what would make a good use of the Listserv. It never really caught on.

During one election season, 2006 or 2008 I think, discussions on the listserv devolved into a partisan wrangle, and a lot of people unsubscribed to avoid the spammy flood of emails.

Nowadays, use of the Listserv is very low — Dan Seiver trolls for information on the recently departed, and the occasional veteran-from-the-aughts, as was the case here, will open up a Yale-related discussion.

Lucky Lobster Rag

Celebration of Whole Foods’ (imagined) treatment of live lobsters they decided it was immoral to sell

Bill Newton, Soprano Sax

Ed Butler, Percussion ‘FJ Ventre, Bass

Jon Shain, Banjo

Jon Shain, FJ Ventre – Lobster Chorus

LYRICS

Way down back of the Good Foods Store They built us out an ocean floor: That’s where we lucky lobsters love to loll. They feed us scraps of hard salami, chevre, olives, edamame. Each day we’re on another kind of roll.

Pilgrims thought we were fertilizer; Later gourmets learned to prize our Springy sweet white flesh dry-brushed With tangerine and salmon. To sell us from captivity is wrong they say But secretly, we think our great good fortune Might have more to do with Mammon.

And could they grill us? No no no… And they couldn’t just kill us? Nah What would they tell The tofu swells And the friends of free range buffalo?

Pa got sold before our day: At a dandy dinner in old Back Bay In nutmeg, cream and brandy gladly met his destiny. Now his shell’s out west some forty mile, The rest of him has cleared Deer Island. He’s back in the harbor singin’ Nearer my cod to thee. And would they sell Us? No no no! Or braise and jell us? They’ll have to keep us well, or we’ll cast our spell And wilt all their radiccio.

Meanwhile my life’s like no other: I play mah jongg with my twin brother; We dance the quadrille, sing our songs Till quarter after three. Till morning then we fall asleep On cobble in a happy heap: Some jellyfish our night light If we ever have to pee.

Old friends arrive from stores everywhere, In sacks of rockweed Next day air! And could they poach us? Too slow OO- eee. They’re going to coach us, with Yoga classes, meditation, Ten step meetings, Each crustacean’ll Be all the lobster he or she can be….

Now lobster rhymes with dinner bell For years at sea we’ve known this well. We thought our last swim would be in Some big blue speckled pot. So every day, the chosen many, We circle round, phase our antennae With a lobster podcast live at noon Give thanks for what we got.

Lucky lobsters live forever Drinkin’ sparkling clementine.

Wyethstown

From the standpoint of a woman coming of age in the Boston Valley area of Western New York, ca. 1850

Kaitlin Grady , Cello; FJ Ventre, Bass

LYRICS

My family came and settled down, year of thirty-four, Homesteaded near Wyethstown, your father owned the store. We played together, laughed and cried, since we were very young, Over hill and meadowside, of golden-green we’d run. And there was noone to say I’d regret the day That the railroad come.

They built the railroad by us when you were twenty-two. You quit your job at Wyeth’s farm to help them put it through. In summer sun I’d watch you sink the steel into the ground, Then we’d walk together in the woods on the ridge above the town. The summer that the railroad come, and I loved you.

Now Wyethstown is weathered-in, all blanketed with snow. Alone I read your letter in the embers dyin’ glow. I’ll wait a winter while you court your girls of quality By sidewalk-light in New Orleans, and never think of me. And I never thought, when the railroad come, you’d ever go.

Things aren’t much changed in Wyethstown since you left that day. With six long summers come and gone there‘s little more to say. But Sunday after church we cross the golden fields of hay And climb the ridge above the town, to wait along the right of way, For the white smoke comin’ risin’ in the sky, Blue, as your son’s eyes followin’ the train, as it goes by.

LYRICS

A board of pinned up souvenirs, upstairs in a forgotten room. I’d passed them by these many years; I thought I should go through them. Here, a steeple draws my eye To sky scrubbed clean with cotton clouds: The pilgrim church where you and I Would read our poems, say our vows. Next, a formal on great stairs with family, friends and flowers: If we had doubts we didn’t know it; If we knew, we wouldn’t show it.

Saint Francesca of San Marco, pigeons in your hair; Running down the beach with gulls, You’re almost in the air. Next, astride a cannon in the fort in Nova Scotia- Elysees, Galatoires, Ocean City bumper cars.

(Refrain) Pacific Tides would pull you, I tried but couldn’t hold you. No picture when you said “you’ve done your best, I just can’t stay”. No picture when we loaded full your wagon for the West; I rode with you to Omaha and kissed you on your way.

Here’s the postcard that you sent from Reykjavik last year; Traveling with new family, found contentment now I hear. In your Mother’s town, now No more steeple in the square: Clapboards, yew trees, Bulldozed down; just concrete condos there.

(refrain)

One more photo on the sofa This one I might keep. Velvet Elvis, dogs, cat, you All curled up in a happy heap. That was then, and then was golden Sheaves of love and laughter. This is Now and Then is done, But Now reopens after all: With trembling fingers, one by one I’m tearing down these pictures on the wall…

(refrain)

Last Fire

Written against the prompt “Fire” for a Dan and Faith Song Challenge Sept 2017

LYRICS

I bring fire to all the planets in the galaxy With a crystal that I hold to catch their sun All gather round for warmth; I tell them it’s a gift To use with love and share with everyone

So it always starts out well; they learn to tend the fires Share them, cook, stay warm, keep beasts at bay Then someone wants the biggest fire and someone wants the only one Once fighting starts it all will burn away. And the prairies burn, And the forests burn, And soon it’s only cinders and ash.

Had high hopes for this one planet I enlightened long ago: They learned to share the fires, make tools and glass. Built Cathedrals with stained windows let the colored sunlight through Orchestras and choirs sing Allelu Alleluia …

Then they started burning anyone who wouldn’t sing their tune, Burned books of foreign thoughts and foreign songs Then they learned to can the fire And rain it down on everyone And everything will burn before too long And their cities burn And their forests burn And soon again it’s cinders and ash

Now I’m some empty planet of some sun i’ve never seen Should find one near that’s not had fire before But so far all I have done has only come to stone and ash And I don’t want no part of it no more

So I’ve collected fuel; found some tinder in my poke For one last time I’ve caught the sun in crystal I lie here in the warmth; my diamond shattered at my feet I’ll still be here after the fire dwindles

Farewell to all the silent stars The planets stone and ash The planets stone and ashen soon to be

Still warm but getting colder Use the fire well! Colder Share the fire with love! Cold Love! Cold

Starts in the Australian outback, comes around the world and back home; Sympathetic Vibration

Kaitlin Grady Cello; FJ Ventre Bass

LYRICS

Ripples widen in the pool that cradled every ancient soul, Catch sunsparks, eucalyptus leaves, and sky; The bark canoe slides forward as he leans back on his pole; Beneath his breath his Father’s song will rise.

Two thousand years away, A gondolier leans on his oar; From turrets, steps, canals and stones His Father’s Father’s song resounds. All who pole and all who row And sing their soul’s song as they go: You can feel them turn the world around.

From towers all around the town Long shadows as the sun goes down: The vesper bells all hear each other ring. The organ’s diapason honeying the choir’s eleison To their Father, as the congregation sings. The spirit moves to minarets, Muezzins make the call to prayer: The faithful bow in concert on the ground. All who sing and all who ring and all who join in listening, And all who play and all who pray Will know they move as one, one day. Hear them as they turn the world around.

You’re both in bed now, feigning sleep; You’re newlywed, and new to fight; You’d floated through all yesterday in bliss Sharp words both ways cut both ways deep You hope you’ll make it through the night; Your Father never sang a song for this. But listen for her breathing: match your drawings-in to hers. If she sleeps, then so may you; If not, her hand may yet find yours Late enemies in unison Anemones unfurl Wave together… Nearer ever… Hear each other, You can turn the world.

An ode to meditation – where it comes from, how it starts, how useful it is

Doug Hammer Piano, FJ Ventre Bass

LYRICS

Time now, time beckoning, time out of memory, Glimpses of dreams not yet dared, Reborn romance, second chances past reckoning, The future, now Now, is repaired. Here at the high mark where all waters rise, Before they start falling away, Widen the moment in front of your eyes: You can dance through all time in a day.

Lamb in the oven; cinnamon, ginger, Songs from your Grandmother’s heart- Easter time, family gathers for dinner- Take your place till they’re ready to start. Early this morning, out under the apple tree, Fall’s drops a-dapple with sun Cidery air up to blossoms, cerulean… Grandfather’s blessing’s begun.

At a still point, And you yearn to stay, But the world turns, And it slips away.

Gone now the apple tree, Long gone the family Raised in the home that they built in its place. You ride to the strains of a loopy calliope Reaching for brass rings they no longer make. But you’re finding apple trees everywhere now: The forest in new-fallen snow, Gull above beach cliff, towers in Tuscany. Cradle them, then let them go.

In the windlessness on the canyon floor Breathe the sky down in. And again before Each dip of the paddle, Each flick of the pen, As God writes your name in his hand.

Don't Remember Train

Started in a dream from which Rick hasn’t awakened

FJ Ventre, Bass; Ed Butler Percussion

LYRICS

I don’t remember getting on this train Already out of town along the bay. The seats are pretty comfy though I’ve got some food from home: Some bread and cheese, an apple; I’ll sit and watch the shoreline slide away. But I don’t remember getting on this train.

I never bought a ticket for this train. Conductor smiles and nods as he goes by. I ask when the next station is “Don’t worry you won’t miss it: You’ll slow way down before you stop That’s how you’re gonna know.” And I don’t remember getting on this train.

If I weren’t on this train I’d be out there on the tideflats, Rake and wire basket digging clams. Back to the cottage kitchen where the chowder pot is simmering, Mom and Barb are cackling ‘bout the butcher’s jokes today. But the laughs I hear are just two gals behind me to my right, And I don’t remember getting on this train.

Just got back from sittin’ with my Dad. He’s ridin’ just a few cars up ahead. He still enjoys the ride, the gentle rocking side to side, “Look how the sunlight hits that hill Remember when we climbed it ?” “Not that one Dad, but yes it surely looked like it that day …”

And look who’s here beside me now It’s so long since I walked you home! You let me take your books, I couldn’t think of what to say. But here now we can talk about our trials and our travels, And sit and watch the golden fields roll by. Still, I don’t remember getting on this train.

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